Honeywell Adds New Members to PKS Advantage Program, Boosting Wireless Range

Honeywell (USA) recently announced three new member companies of the PKS Advantage program for its OneWireless Network and industrial wireless products and solutions: GasSecure, Redline Communications and Purelink. The new members add support for wireless hydrocarbon leak detection, broadband wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, and real-time location solutions to the wireless platform.

“The collaboration enabled by these new brands will allow wireless users to integrate a range of solutions that boost their operation’s safety and efficiency,” said Ray Rogowski, director of wireless marketing, Honeywell Process Solutions. “The PKS Advantage program delivers constantly evolving, industry-beating wireless solutions for our OneWireless customers.”

Knut Sandven, chief executive officer of GasSecure, said the program was working for better integration with automation and wireless systems.

“Honeywell is one of the biggest process systems suppliers in the world in the automation space, so this is an important step in that direction,” Sandven said.

GasSecure offers its ISA100 wireless gas detector for hydrocarbon leakage monitoring. The GS01 is the world’s first wireless infrared detector. It is based on innovative microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology to reduce power consumption and has two years of battery life with continuous monitoring.

The other new members are wireless M2M communications specialists Redline Communications and Purelink, manufacturers of real-time location systems (RTLS), long range tracking badges, tags and software.

Redline’s RDL-3000 Elte-MT solution is the first ruggedized and M2M-optimized wide-area wireless system to be PKS-compliance certified. Providing M2M connectivity to link sensors and security cameras over widely dispersed areas for “digital oil fields” with central automation and management systems, it will be first of a number of systems made available to Honeywell wireless users.

“Oil and gas producers can now combine our rugged, reliable and high performance broadband wireless solutions with Honeywell’s extensive product offerings with complete confidence of seamless interoperability,” said Leigh Chang, Redline’s associate vice president of product management. “The move should help speed the deployment of specialised M2M solutions.”

Purelink, meanwhile, uses its Core Technology DILS (Digital Impulse Location System) to engineer RTLS systems and software used by customers worldwide to locate people and equipment in buildings, airports, manufacturing plants and other industries. It will enable its products to seamlessly integrate with Honeywell’s OneWireless Network to deliver location-based, context-aware applications for process optimisation, security and safety.

“This collaboration will expand the range of customers to whom we can offer cost effective, high quality and high performance geolocation products,” said Emerson Nerat, president and CEO, Purelink.

Using Honeywell’s wireless solutions, customers are able to connect easily with a range of products from PKS Advantage members, as well as Honeywell’s own portfolio, for secure solutions with much lower installed costs than using conventional hard wiring. The PKS Advantage program already includes leading solutions from Beamex, Cape Software Inc., Flowserve Corporation, Flow Control Division, Metso Automation, Pepperl+Fuchs and Turck Inc., among others.